


Hysteria

by Sapphic_Futurist



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Avalon Protocol, Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, referenced voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25850842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist/pseuds/Sapphic_Futurist
Summary: Later, Steve will remember this as the exact moment when he stepped out of his own body and started to drift away.“JARVIS? What exactly is the Avalon Protocol?"
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 160





	Hysteria

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this as a small fill for the SteveTony games (if you're interested, you can find it on Tumblr, errors and all) with prompts including: Avalon Protocol, Soulmates, "Stark Men are Made of Iron," "Please Tell Me Nobody Kissed Me," and Voyeurism. 
> 
> Turns out, there was more to the story.
> 
> Thanks to athletiger for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are my own, because I couldn't leave this alone.

Steve groans into the curve of Tony’s throat and bites down on the straining tendons he’s been laving with his tongue. Who is Steve to deny him when Tony begs in that pretty, breathy voice, handing over everything Steve’s ever hoped for and more?

“Oh, fuck Steve,” Tony inhales a ragged gasp right next to his ear, sending a zing of pleasure straight to Steve’s cock.

“That’s what you want, right sweetheart? For everyone to know you’re mine?”

“Yes. Yes, please! Hurry up!”

Steve laughs, a little breathless sound, because the blare of the Assembly Alarm is screaming through their bedroom and has been for a handful of minutes. JARVIS has thoughtfully started broadcasting the comms line through the Tower and Steve can hear that Clint and Natasha are already scrambling the Quinjet, and Thor is in the sky on route. 

Tony’s nails scramble down his back, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

“Here, let me—” Steve reaches down between them, a difficult task from where he has Tony folded in half with his knees up by his ears, fucking into him with a pace that’s borderline cruel. Before he can get a hand around Tony’s cock, Tony slaps him away and distracts him with his tongue forced into Steve’s mouth.

“No time. Hurry up.”

Tony’s not wrong. 

This morning had been all about Steve, Tony taking him apart slow and easy with his hands and his mouth, whispering sweet nothings into his ear and easing Steve into orgasms that started to layer over each other until Steve was a whimpering, sobbing mess.

Until the alarm had gone off and Tony had insisted that they not let all of the prep Steve had gone through go to waste, pulling Steve up the bed and lining up his cock before Steve thrust in to the hilt. The sweet whispers turned to filth and rushed desperation to pull another orgasm out of Steve because, _just one more, you’ve got more in there for me don’t you, Steve?_

“Don’t you want to come?” Steve is only half-teasing, watching as Tony’s prick jerks and fills out further between them, answering the question with an emphatic _yes_.

Tony’s cock is an enticing, lush red, a few shades lighter than the flush of exertion spreading across his cheeks and down onto his chest. If they had more time, Steve would lick and suck until red darkened into purple and Tony was teetering on the edge of release, moaning and begging for Steve to let him come.

Tony gives him a light kick to the ribs. “You can finish me off after the battle.”

Steve grins and forces one of Tony’s thighs back further, chasing after every delicious drag of friction. “Is that a promise?”

“Oh Captain,” Tony purrs in his ear, biting down on the lobe. “Consider it an order.”

Steve chokes on a breath, fucking into Tony as hard as he dares and using the headboard for leverage. Sometimes, Steve’s terror of a soulmate likes to up the stakes like this, just for the sake of healthy competition, and Steve knows Tony is grinning because the explosion of red, white and blue fireworks at Tony’s left wrist are glowing, warm to the touch.

Tony always knows exactly what he’s doing.

“You don’t fight fair.” Steve grits his teeth, rolling his forehead against Tony’s clavicle. “When we’re done, I’m going to fuck you right in the street. You hear me, Stark? Right in the street where everyone can see you and know that you’re mine.”

“Steve, please—”

“Everyone already knows you belong to me. The way you walk around like you own the world, with my marks all over you. The man who has everything. Mine.”

Steve’s orgasm creeps up on him, overtaking him without warning and leaving him rigid and panting, thrusting off-rhythm into the warm heat of Tony’s body with a groan of _oh fuck_. Somewhere on the edges of his consciousness he thinks he hears a yelp, and when enough of his brain reboots, Steve opens his eyes and sees Tony wearing a mischievous grin, rubbing at an already purpling bruise at his throat.

“Come on, hurry up, you’ve made us late to the party!” Tony scrambles out from underneath him, cock bouncing between his legs and a small trickle of come already working its way down the back of his thighs.

Steve struggles for composure, using everything he has to stop himself from dragging Tony back down onto the bed and starting all over again. The realization that Tony’s prepared to go into the fight with Steve’s come still dripping out of him sends a rush of arousal punching back through his body. Tony, taking a little piece of Steve with him wherever he goes. And with a spectacular hickey on his throat to boot.

It’s too much. His rebellious cock twitches between his thighs and Steve groans as he curls up and hops off the bed.

“Steve, come on!” Tony’s still grinning, throwing his armour towards him. “There’s an orgasm on the line here!”

Steve laughs his way into his pants and is still laughing on the roof a few minutes later when Tony grabs hold of his wrist, snaps the faceplate shut, and fires them off to the battle.

****

“Iron Man, we need you down here,” Steve’s voice is barely audible in his ears over the roar of the battle, but the comms would pick it up. Tony is high above him in the sky, repulsors chopping through hordes of the alien invaders as if they’re nothing but reams of paper, leaving a stream of alien gore in his wake.

Tony's taken a bad hit a few minutes ago, and for a long moment Steve had held his breath, feeling the sear of pain up his forearm. Underneath his gloves, his soulmark is on fire, a beacon of warning that his soulmate is injured.

But then Tony had rocketed back up into the air, shaking off the damage, and relief rushed out on a puff of air as the tightening in Steve’s chest released.

He’s alright. Tony is fine, because he’s up in the air, repulsors streaking across the horizon and various weaponry springing from his shoulders and forearms to explode like its the Fourth of July.

It must just be some minor suit damage, because though Tony isn’t responding he appears to be picking up on what Steve is saying over the team line. Just as requested, Iron Man turns and starts blasting towards him, landing on the ground a few steps away and firing a repulsor blast at Steve’s shield. 

An arc of heat and light slices through the aliens threatening to overtake Clint and Natasha fighting a few feet away from them, and bodies drop to the ground around them.

“Hey, you alright?” Steve pants out a breath, eyes roving over the armour.

The chest piece is glowing bright, and though there is a massive concave dent in the back of the suit, it doesn’t appear to impair Tony’s ability to fly or fight. Tony doesn’t respond, the eyes of the Iron Man suit glowing back at him as Tony dodges past Steve and blasts another alien dropping from the sky.

“Are your comms down? Tony, hold on, just flip up the face plate for a second—”

“Stark men are made of iron,” Clint interrupts over the comms, “isn’t that what he’s always telling us? He’s fine, Cap, as long as he can hear us. At least we’ll get a break from the comedy special.”

Steve snaps a sharp _Clint_ across the comms but shoots Tony a sheepish look. “You know I just worry sometimes, Shellhead.”

Tony remains silent but seems to hesitate before rocketing back off into the sky.

The soulmark at Steve’s wrist flares again and a pocket of dread starts to fill in the bottom of his gut, curling and tightening with nervousness. He’ll be damned if Tony thinks he can skip out of medical after this is all over. If Steve doesn’t give him a once over himself, first.

Steve switches to the private line, just for the two of them, racing up the street to where the Hulk is being overrun. Thor is in the sky overheard, Mjolnir flashing against the glint of the sun. They’re almost through. Victory is within reach and Steve can almost taste it.

Thor starts to force the portal closed; a malfunction in the Bifrost that Steve can’t care less for, as long as he shuts it down and the aliens stop coming through. The whole situation is far too similar to New York and Steve finds himself shoving aside the visual of Tony falling, limp from the sky.

That had been too close, and Steve wasn't prepared to lose him again. Hell, Steve isn’t prepared to lose Tony, _ever_. 

“When we’re done here, I’m taking you home and we’re not leaving for two days,” Steve grunts under his breath as an alien catches him right in the belly. The air is knocked from his lungs for a brief moment, before Steve beheads the alien with a sharp, cutting arc of his shield and is back in motion again. “I don’t even know if I can wait that long sweetheart, I might just have to bend you over in front of the whole goddamn team.”

Steve gets another flash from New York, Tony’s wide, panicked eyes asking him, “please tell me nobody kissed me?” And Steve laughing, confirming that wasn’t the case and then remedying the error after they’d eaten their fill of shawarma.

“You’d love that though, wouldn’t you? You’d want them to watch, just so they all know you belong to me. Invite them into our damned bedroom if you could, just so they’d all see, hm?” Steve smiles to himself and the silence that greets him, knowing full well that Tony’s both a sucker for Steve talking filth to him at inopportune times, and his little fantasies of the rest of the team having to watch.

Steve isn’t quite sure he’d want everyone to watch, even if he can appreciate how possessiveness turns into searing arousal when his teammates take in the bruises he leaves at Tony’s wrists or scattered across his throat. But it doesn’t hurt, playing into Tony’s secret desires with the fight all but over, and an endless stretch of time before them to settle up on said promises later.

As he watches Tony sail through an intricate maneuver of dips and weaves, decimating the airborne aliens above, Steve focuses on the last remaining squadrons on the ground.

Exhaustion creeps into his bones as Steve picks them off one by one until the fighting is over and the team starts to trickle out from the surrounding blocks. They fall into a half-circle around Steve and he takes a quick inventory of potential injuries, pleased when everyone seems to be mostly alright.

A nasty gash on Natasha’s forearm is the only obvious exception.

“Iron Man, meet us at the top of Main,” Steve makes a sweeping gesture north and watches as Tony blasts forward.

Steve scratches at his wrist, the burn licking halfway up his arm now. Something wasn’t right. Tony has taken more hard hits than Steve could count and though the soulmark has ached and prickled before, it hasn’t burned quite like this. For a moment he’s grateful that medical is on standby, and Tony would be there first. 

But by the time Steve makes it to the makeshift medical tent, it starts to dawn on him that something is more than wrong. Tony is bent over in the suit, kneeling in a half crouch in the concrete, head bowed down with the eyes of the suit blank and colourless. The suit is powered down, but Tony has yet to step out.

“Tony?” Steve approaches with caution, dread creeping through his veins. “Is everything okay? Pop the helmet for me, let’s get you over to medical.”

Tony doesn’t move, and the Iron Man suit is unresponsive.

“Tony?” Bruce says, back to human and soft-spoken from behind Steve’s shoulder.

“Captain,” JARVIS says through the external speakers, his lilt emotionless and more robotic than Steve has ever heard before. “I regret to inform you that the Avalon Protocol was activated at 16:47 after Sir sustained a significant trauma to the spinal cord. Now that the battle is complete, the protocol will remain active only until further arrangements can be made.”

“Avalon Protocol?” Natasha steps up on Steve’s other side and puts a steadying hand on his elbow. Steve hadn’t realized that he’s shaking.

“JARVIS? What exactly is the Avalon Protocol? Tony’s okay, right? He’s just unconscious or something? Release the suit and I'll carry him over to the med tent.”

But the suit doesn’t open and there’s a long pause before JARVIS speaks again.

Later, Steve will remember this as the exact moment when he stepped out of his own body and started to drift away.

“Sir has died, Captain. The Avalon Protocol was established in the event of death during a catastrophic event. It would allow me to take over and pilot the Iron Man suit remotely until the fight had ended, so the team would not be left short-handed. The battle is complete and thus the protocol remains active only so far as to allow me to transport Sir to his next location. I am terribly sorry for your loss.”

One minute, Steve is standing beside Natasha and the next, he’s underwater. There’s water in his lungs and he’s drowning. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, and JARVIS is here telling him that Tony is dead when he was just—when Tony was just—

Steve doubles over from where he’s collapsed to his knees and retches onto the pavement. Natasha tries to wrap an arm around his shoulders but he shoves her off with too much force and sends her sprawling backward, not processing what she’s saying. What does it matter? What could she possibly have to say to him now?

JARVIS tries to say something more but it gets lost in the white static screaming in Steve’s ears. Everything is cold and Steve hadn’t realized anything would ever hurt more than freezing to death.

He crawls forward, ignoring the refuse that tracks onto the pants of his uniform and how everything smells foul and rotten, to get his hands under the chin of the helmet, yanking hard despite the shouts of protest behind him.

Tears blur across his vision and he’s near blind when he sees—oh god _, Tony._

Tony’s face is pale and streaked with blood, head limp against the back of the suit where it cradles him so gently amidst the sheer violence of the scene. His eyes are open, staring unfixed beyond Steve’s shoulder so Steve reaches over with trembling fingers and gently shuts them, trailing his index finger down to run along the set curve of Tony’s mouth. His beautiful, perfect mouth.

A mouth that’s never going to smile or laugh or kiss Steve ever again.

“But you—it was an order—” Steve breaks off with a sob, yanking at his gloves to get his hands on Tony’s face and touch him skin to skin, just one last time before they start trying to pull him away. They’ll have to, Steve isn’t going anywhere. He’s not going anywhere without Tony. Not ever. 

His eyes catch on his left wrist, where at some point the burning has stopped and been replaced with... nothing. There’s no sensation, there’s no explosion of red and gold, the resplendent fireworks that once adorned his skin. 

There’s nothing, because there’s no Tony anymore.

Steve’s soulmark is gone. Steve’s soulmate is gone.

Tony’s skin is cold to the touch and Steve retches again.

Too many hands start prying him away and he’s just trying to get Tony into his arms. Why can’t they leave him alone? He only wants to hold him, plaster him against his chest and keep Tony safe from the world as if there’s enough love inside Steve’s body to keep them both alive.

Why can’t the person screaming _just shut up?_

Steve realizes a beat later that the screaming is him.

So, he thinks wildly, this is hysteria.

****

Steve blinks a few times to clear the haze that clouds the edges of his vision. He runs his sluggish tongue across the roof of his mouth and reaches out a blind hand until it meets soft, warm skin. An arm that belongs to Pepper, of all people.

Pepper is stroking his hair. But Pepper never strokes his hair. 

Pepper strokes _Tony’s_ hair, when Steve and Rhodey are unavailable and Tony is lacking for human connection. Sometimes, Steve thinks that she enjoys it just as much as Tony does and he can’t blame her. Tony’s hair is so soft, slipping through his fingers and sliding against his palm like little trickles of silk.

Correction, Tony’s hair was soft.

All at once it comes rushing back and the living room tilts on its axis. Steve jolts up off the couch, his body lethargic and unsteady as he tries to adjust to the mumble of conversation around him, words that stretch and claw for entrance to his brain but aren’t quite processing. 

Someone’s drugged him. They must have had to sedate him even though that never lasts for long and doing it now feels selfish. Steve already knows there isn’t enough sedation in the world to take away the pain of _this._

“T-ny,” Steve’s mouth doesn’t want to cooperate. He tries again. “T-Tony.”

All the mutterings stop, and the hand Pepper has in his hair slides down to cup his face. Both of her hands are on his cheeks and he squints to try and make sense of the mess of eyes and nose and mouth that should be her face, but contort into something else. Maybe it’s all the red blotches, new splatters of watercolour across her delicate features that have never been there before. 

“You need to breathe, Steve. Take a deep breath,” Pepper is repeating the same two sentences over and over again which seems odd until Steve realizes it’s because he’s holding air in his lungs and refusing to let it go. As if exhaling would mean admitting that Tony is gone.

That he’s letting Tony go.

Steve pries her hands off his face and sets them in her lap. Both of their fingers are wet. Steve wonders if his eyes are as red as hers, sparing her a slow blink as he stumbles up off the couch and towards the elevator on legs that shouldn’t be able to carry him. 

“Steven, I don’t think—” Steve knocks aside the hand Thor is trying to lay across his shoulder and pushes past him. He barks out an order to JARVIS to take him down to the workshop where he punches in his override code and seals the place down. Full blackout.

Tony loved full blackout.

Especially when Steve surprised him late into the afternoon to fuck him into the futon in the corner, greasy towels thrown over the bots to protect their innocence. He’s never going to have that again. Not tapping his fingers against the troublesome smirk that once lit up Tony’s face from across the room and tasted like pure joy. Not kiss him and kiss him a hundred times over until Steve is warm from the inside out, boiling over so they’re both tearing at each other’s clothes. 

How could Tony do this? 

The question bounces off the inside of his skull and sits heavy in his stomach. 

How could Tony do _this_? Of all the things they’ve done to each other over the years, good and bad, Tony’s gone and just—

Steve had ordered around his corpse, lifeless in the coffin that was the Iron Man armour and Tony had thought that that would be okay. That Steve could somehow come out the other end of that scenario with his sanity intact and not be completely fucked up. Or he knew that wouldn’t be the case and made the call anyways, 

What’s the right answer when the only options are devastating or horrific? 

Steve staggers to his knees at the edge of the futon and pulls himself up until he’s slumped against the backrest, limp limbs a chaos in front of him. It’s almost shocking how there’s no connection to his own body now, just a bag of bones on autopilot that don’t belong to Steve anymore.

The soulmark on his wrist had always been the tether, something to hold on to when the nightmares felt more real than reality and the Valkyrie was going down, fast. Even before he knew what it meant, or who it tied him to, Steve’s soulmark had kept him grounded. 

Funny, how the nightmare had never been waking up without it. Steve should have known.

“JARVIS why?” Steve rasps into the quiet room, pressing his fists into his eyes. “Why did he—why would he—” His voice dies on a sob, that brings reinforcements until Steve is choking on air and the misery washes over him. 

With misery comes a distinct feeling of rage not dissimilar from the rage that had followed Steve for months after Bucky had fallen from the train. A rage that hollows away into that dangerous place inside himself and calls for retribution. A useless, pointless feeling because in seconds Tony has simultaneously taken everything that’s ever mattered to Steve and robbed him of his ability to get justice for the crime. 

“Show me. Show me the day he wrote the protocol.”

“Captain—”

“Master Override L-R-2-5-5-8, Captain Rogers, Steven Grant. I know you have the footage, JARVIS. Show it to me. Now.”

JARVIS remains quiet as a hologram of Tony appears before Steve in the centre of the shop, projected from some unknown space across the room.

Tony looks like a dream, a maniacal vision with his face pinched with strain from too long under the fluorescent lights and grease stains tracked up his arms despite freshly cleaned hands. Tony is entirely in his element, his left leg jerking a restless rhythm from where he’s perched on the edge of his chair, as if his body is just trying to keep up with the speed of his genius.

This is the Tony Stark that Steve fell in love with. 

This was… this was years ago.

“I don’t believe this is wise, Sir,” JARVIS is saying as Tony’s fingers fly over a keyboard. Line upon line of text appears at rapid speed on a massive, holographic computer screen. “I would deign to suggest this goes against my most basic protocols for the wellbeing of the Tower’s inhabitants.”

Tony snorts. “Don’t be like that J, you’ve heard what they said. This is a necessity. Captain Tightass and good ol’ eye-patch have practically called for this in writing. I’m just doing them a favour.”

“I don’t think this was quite what either of them had in mind.”

“Don’t be obtuse, J, it doesn’t suit you. What else could _Iron Man, yes, Tony Stark, not recommended,_ and _take off the suit and what are you_ mean aside from Iron Man needs to be the priority. Full stop. Even if the insignificant gooey jelly-bag inside is no longer, the team can still reap the benefits of all this firepower, right? It’ll be fine. Hopefully we’ll never have to use it.”

“Sir—”

“Mute. Pipe down, no one asked you anyways,” Tony mutters into the abrupt silence. 

Streams of coding continue to flesh out between pauses where Tony stops to crack his knuckles and stretch out his neck. He carries on that way for the better part of a half hour while Steve sits there, numb, watching with a renewed sense of horror settling in his chest.

Was this his fault?

Steve was able to order around the corpse of his soulmate—give the suit posthumous orders without even realizing—all because of a snide comment made in anger Steve rarely thought about? All because Natasha had gotten things wrong and Fury had been a bit more of a bastard than usual with his delivery? 

That had been _years_ ago.

Things had changed. Or at least, they had changed for Steve, back when he had spent the beginning of their relationship trying to atone for the things they’d said to each other. When Steve had started to truly see Tony for who he was, not the layers of smoke and mirror Tony presented to the world, showering him with praise and thanks until Tony was glowing with it.

How, after all this time, could Tony still think he was so worthless? So inconsequential that the only thing that mattered was the products of his labour. What did that mean for all the tender moments, the whispered promises? The plans they had for the future. 

The thought that maybe Tony had died not knowing how much Steve had loved him curdles in his belly and he forces it away. There has to be another explanation. 

Tony’s voice startles Steve and his attention returns with a singular focus when the ticking of the keyboard comes to a sudden stop. Tony rests, setting his hands on the edge of the workbench in a controlled, fluid motion, giving the screen a blank look smeared with the beginnings of distaste. 

“This is a little fucked up, even for you, Stark.” Tony shakes his head, burying his face in his hands and sliding the tips of his fingers into his hairline with a groan. “He’s not going to be happy about this.”

Tony’s head jerks up to something off the recording, and Steve watches, ripe with sadness, when Tony’s face brightens into a smile. A cup of coffee appears in Tony’s outstretched hand, and Steve sees himself step into focus with arms already reaching to wrap around Tony’s waist and tug him out of the chair, reeling him in.

“Hi,” Past-Steve whispers against Tony’s mouth, nosing at his jaw. “What are you doing down here? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Tony curls his free hand at the back of Steve’s neck and playfully pecks at his lips between sips from the steaming mug.

The air in Steve’s chest threatens to strangle him. At some point, one he can’t even remember now, Steve had brought Tony coffee for the last time.

Kissed him for the last time.

It doesn’t make sense. Steve can feel Tony’s fingers curling in his hair _right now_ , twisting and tugging at the little strands to hold Steve’s focus and guide his face wherever Tony might need it. How is it that he can feel that if Tony is lying in a morgue somewhere? Wherever they’ve taken him. 

Because Tony is dead. Gone.

Tony is gone and he’s never coming back and Steve ordered around his dead body in the suit and he—

“Nothing important,” Tony whispers back before he answers the rest of Steve’s anticipated questions with a tongue in Steve’s mouth and a firm grip on his jaw.

Steve swallows, his mouth dry and tacky.

_Nothing important_. As if he amounts to less than garbage and all that matters is a series of letters and numbers wrapped up in gold-titanium alloy. As if the man inside is devoid of value. As if Tony himself is—was—nothing at all.

Every moment that Tony’s ever whispered in Steve’s ear, _use me, like I’m just a warm body, like I’m here for you to do whatever you want to me_ , explodes behind his eyes and a fresh wave of tears threatens. That he could have ever—that he had contributed to _that_ , slices through his belly.

All the happy memories, now jagged and broken at the edges.

The video Steve’s watching comes to an end, and for a long moment there’s nothing. No holographic Tony, no sweet, teasing kisses, no soft, laughing voice. Just Steve, alone in the expanse of Tony’s workshop.

Just Steve, alone. Again. Damn it.

It doesn’t make sense, how after all these years together Tony could still feel this way. That nothing had changed between them, and Steve was still a villain in his story. That Tony couldn’t see his weight in gold in Steve’s eyes, how he mattered more than everything and Steve would find a way to breathe water if he had to, just to keep Tony safe and by his side.

Steve was going to ask Tony to marry him. Retire, move on, have a whole life together.

Steve curls over on his side, pulling down the blanket that hangs over the back of the sofa and takes a deep breath. The smell of Tony lingers on everything, sharp and spicy, comforting in a way that makes Steve think he could die here, if he really wanted. Just close his eyes, dream about Tony, and wait for death to come knocking.

Tomorrow he’ll have to start making arrangements to bury his soulmate. 

Maybe, he thinks, if he asks nicely, they’ll bury Steve along with him. After all, how can Tony expect Steve to go on living without him?

“Captain?”

“Yeah, JARVIS?” Steve croaks, tears falling in quiet, even rivers down his face.

“You should know that Sir considered removing the protocol last year.” _Then why did he do this to me?_ “He decided not to because he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you unprotected in the field. The Avalon Protocol both relinquished direct control of the suit to your authority, and made your safety it’s top priority. The latter part of the protocol was added early last year, shortly after your third anniversary.” 

Somehow, that’s worse. Tony, loving Steve more than he can bear or ever hope to understand. And with a damned fucked up way of showing it. Shame layers into Steve’s grief, the last stone that crushes him into oblivion even though Steve can’t remember whispering _more weight_. 

Steve tugs the blanket higher as he closes his eyes and calls forth a memory from last Christmas; Tony curled in his lap in an oversized sweater asking Steve in a quiet voice if it’s too late for them to start a family.

The tears come and don’t stop.


End file.
